Wil Wheaton: Cool RAMBLE

You first have to read this blog post by TV’s Wil Wheaton – he tells a great story about his relationship with Jonathan Frakes, and how important it is to find the family that laughs with you, not at you. I’ll wait. Tagging @annewheaton and @lenperalta

I can almost imagine what it must be like to have a dad who loves you – WIL WHEATON dot NET
— Read on wilwheaton.net/2021/11/i-can-almost-imagine-what-it-must-be-like-to-have-a-dad-who-loves-you/

First of all, he’s no longer “TV’s Wil Wheaton,” ironic construct. He’s “Wil Wheaton’s Wil Wheaton.” He’s made a good life and career for himself as a writer, voice actor, nerd-culture TV host, blogger, and most importantly, dad to two sons. He’s also an awesome pet dad, though he doesn’t mention it in this particular blog post.

This blog post made me so happy and my face got all leaky – based on the comments, a lot of faces got all leaky out there in the internets. It’s a nice look at past Wil and current Wil, and how he relates (literally, in a chosen-family way) to fellow actor and Star Trek: Next Gen alum Jonathan Frakes.

Longtime readers of Wil’s blog will know a lot of his backstory; in fact, Wil was a very early blogger, almost a pioneer at the beginning of blogging. As it happens, I’ve been reading his blog for more than 20 years – certainly from when we still lived in the condo we had in a different suburb, and from when this blog was still put together with Movable Type.

At the earliest time I became aware of his blog, Wil was years beyond his Star Trek career – struggling, trying to figure out how to grownup with his young family, recording early writing success and wondering if he’d get to act again. I continued to dip in and out of his blog, catching glimpses and privately cheering when he reported something good happening – books published, voice-over roles, seeing old friends at Star Trek conventions.

Some time after that, after we moved to this house, and while I was still doing long blog posts, AND just after taking on the role of webmistress for the Holy Moly church website, this happened. 

Poster by Len Peralta / @jawboneradio (CC Some Rights Reserved)

Just re-reading that reminded me of why I missed writing long blogposts. I used to do that  A LOT, maybe too much. Also, many of the friends mentioned in the first part of the post (where the picture links are busted) have now moved to Arizona, and we’ll be seeing them soon. We’ll see Mitch and Gloria, too.

So I want to thank Wil for the comedic slap shot to the head that led me down that particularly enjoyable RAMBLE (random-access memory blog link excursion). And I hope he’s got a chance to work with Frakes and the rest of his extended chosen Star Trek family soon. Or maybe just take a road trip with Frakes, a van, and two GoPros.

Gators Gonna Gate, Or Why Peter Pan Live Wasn’t That Bad, Really

So last night, the folks on Jezebel were all set to hate-tweet NBC’s second annual live musical theater production. This time around, it was #PeterPanLive, starring Allison Williams, aka Brian Williams’ daughter and some kind of star on HBO or something we don’t watch. Once again, I set up to watch live, or as close to live as possible given that we had to put dinner together, but I caught up via TiVo. And I tweeted, and tweeted, and hung out at Jezebel in the “live blog,” trying to get out of the “greys” (the pending comments).

Today, Jezebel followed up with the five most mockable moments, including this oddity, which was stuck in the middle of a commercial break:

First of all, I’ve only highlighted five moments because Peter Pan Live!, first and foremost, was terribly boring. Not only is it a dull play to begin with, but this one was starring Allison fucking Williams. And, worse yet, not a single fly wire broke during the show. Point being, I really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find five moments that seemed mildly worth the precious time that you and I typically dedicate to Clickhole quizzes. But find them, I did.

via The 5 Most Mockable Moments of Peter Pan Live! .

So I mostly don’t agree that #PeterPanLive was a mockable hot mess for what it was, a musical on live television. Unlike last year’s mess with Whatsername Countrysinger, it wasn’t awful with a few good moments. It was actually pretty good with some awkward bits, uninspired casting. and a less-racist version of the song “Ugga-Wugga-Wug.”

Christopher Walken was weirdly and badly made up, not like his promotional photos had looked, and was moving and speaking slowly (and obviously reading off cue cards and only occasionally camping things up). Also, he had a throne built like a La-Z-Boy recliner that seemed to be ALL THE FAVORITE THINGS for him; he was constantly working the big gold lever to lift the leg rest. Given how little energy he had for dancing, singing, or swordfighting, it may have been written into his contract that he needed a lot of throne time with his legs up. Something was horribly wrong with his eyebrows, so that he looked like Ming the Merciless on Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Still, Allison Williams sang really well, looked disturbingly fey in the part (she has a strong jaw), had sort of British diction, and danced and flew around like a boss.

Wendy looked very mature, as did all the “Lost Boys” but hey, that’s theatre. People on Twitter seemed to be missing Rufio from “Hook” a lot and there was a lot of hooting at the psychedelic croc, but I liked it (and of course it quickly had its own Twitter handle).

They cut some of my favorite stuff, but maybe that’s stuff that was more from the Disney cartoon, like when Peter shouts PIXIE DUST! and makes the pirate ship fly off into the moonlight. And Tinkerbell’s big moment was kind of rushed, and weirdly urgent, since most of the children that needed to clap to keep her alive were asleep by then.

The length of the show was a problem, especially for a show meant to be viewed by children, as it went too late and most little kids couldn’t stay up. There were a few odd things, like the flight wires being very noticeable (especally when the Darling boys first take off).

And yet, I liked it. I liked the set design, I liked the costumes (especially on the pirates), I liked the stagecraft, I liked (for the most part) the camera work. The weird thing is, that the most memorable parts were the weird things that got in the way of the wonder; Peter Pan is a very odd story and it does have some problems for a modern audience, yet people seem to love it anyway. There was shiny sparkly stuff all over, like theatrical Awesome Sauce. It was like the art director decided that MOAR GLITTER on top of bright, intense blues, greens and purples was a given.

“Pixie Dust: They Put That Shit On Everything.”

Yeah, it was shiny. And ludicrously colorful (yet very beautiful, in some shots). And I appreciated the tricks with forced perspective and false scale that they used for some scenes (such as looking over the London rooftops towards the nursery window). The music was vigorous, the dancing was energetic (if a little over-the-top, especially between Lost Boys and Indian braves). There was a lot that was good, and quite a bit that was unsettlingly creepy (if I’m asked to go on an adventure that consists of cooking, cleaning, and making pockets for boys, no thank you).

Of course, lots of people hated it, hooted at it, complained that it was long and weird. But it was never boring, just odd in the way that dreams are sometimes weirdly beautiful.

And I do hope NBC does something like this again next year – but they should either pick something that’s definitely geared and scheduled for family viewing, or do something wild that starts later but isn’t as long. As long as it’s not remotely a holiday theme, since we get enought of that “event entertainment” stuff this time of year, I’d be happy to watch (and tweet) again next year.

How to Lose an Hour of your Life: Cat Bounce

  1. Tune in your favorite trippy space music or techno-trance Internet radio station
  2. Go to this link.
  3. WHAT time is it?

I was in a hell of a mood before I found Zen in Cat Bounce. Be sure to make it rain now and then for extra-soothing cat bounciness.

Cat Bounce is a website where you can make cats bounce. It’s totally mesmerizing and I’m pretty sure it’s an advanced hypnosis technology that was put in place by the cat army to finally have complete control.

via Cat Bounce Has Been Sent From the Future to Ensure Total Cat Domination

Eisenhower warns modern #GOP not to be negligible and stupid #FromTheGrave

20120910-154309.jpg

This excellent quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-Reality) was buried in the comments of the Daily Kos post on the Medicaid issue gaining traction. It would be very interesting to see either Romney or Ryan squirm while attempting to comment on this. Their rigidly imposed frame of reference prevents them from seeing that the GOP is in danger of becoming just such a negligible, stupid party, if it hasn’t already.

The original commenter’s blog is called Condemned To Repeat It

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” -Dwight Eisenhower

via Daily Kos: Democrats pick up Clintons Medicaid call

Romney Social Media Staffer Bill Murphy Linked In To Fraudulent Profitable Tea Party Non-Profit

This is juicy, if a little opaque to the non-Tweety, non-Bloggy, non-Facebooky clueless unlikely voter. The telling point is that he deleted his Linked In profile rather than answer tricky questions about whether his work for the organization would be part of his professional resume.

Hat tip: OsborneInk

Team Romney’s Social Media Director, Bill Murphy, is the former Director of the National Bloggers Club, a group under IRS investigation for soliciting donations while falsely claiming to be a non-profit organization. Although NBC filed incorporation papers in January, the organization is still absent from both the IRS and GuideStar charity databases.

The group’s President, Ali Akbar, is a long-time associate of Murphy’s. In fact this isn’t even their first for-profit non-profit. I first wrote about Akbar in 2009, when he was working at American Liberty Alliance – an organization that fraudulently solicited funds while purporting to be non-profitable. Murphy was ALA’s Director of Strategic Initiatives. Though Akbar would eventually rise to the dizzying heights of Chairman of the ALA Board, at the time he was a mere technology consultant. Incidentally, prior to that he once found himself arrested for grand theft and … wait for it … fraud.

Two weeks ago Ron Brynaert broke the news on his blog (Hackers n Fake Newz) that prior to working for the campaign, Murphy had not only worked at both NBC and ALA, but in fact had left both positions off of his resume, or at least his LinkedIn profile. You can see the before-and-after screenshots on Brynaert’s blog. Following Brynaert’s lead, bloggers like The Liberal Grouch and Breitbart Unmasked launched a bit of a campaign against Akbar. The idea seemed to be to try and get to the Romney campaign through Murphy by tying him to Akbar like a snitch to a cinder block.

However, as it turns out @LiberalGrouch, @BreitbartUnmask and @ronbryn can skip that step. Rather than just being vaguely associated with NBC, Murphy used to run it

via Romney Staffer Bill Murphy Worked For Fraudulent Non-Non-Profits

Balloon Juice » One More Thing About Komen (It Forced Progressives To Grow A Pair)

THIS. Thanks to my Second Life chum RevPaperboy Boozehound for bringing this to my attention. I had been feeling the same way about the huge outpouring of progressive outrage over the Komen debacle, but this crystallized it for me.

DON’T believe the lies. EVERYTHING said about Obama, the economy, and the whole freakin WORLD by FOX Newa commentators and right-wing guests is a a GOD. DAMNED. LIE.

Progressives, assemble. Occupy your passion for justice, fairness, and universal healthcare.

This time, though, was different. It was nice to watch everyone go for blood, and sink their teeth in and get some. That’s what we need in the Democratic party. We need a killer instinct. We need to stop putting up with this bullshit from these crazy people. We need to fight back, we need to start running for local elections and state elections and running the show, and we need to go after them every chance we can. We don’t have to stoop to lies and innuendo, we can go after them with the truth, just like we did this time. They are lying about tax and regulatory burdens. They are lying about social security. They are lying about Obamacare and Medicare and Medicaid. They are lying about the environment and global warming. They are lying about poor people and black people and gay people and immigrants. They are lying about Obama. They are lying about everything.There is nothing noble or wise about trying to have rational arguments, or acting like the mature people when you are dealing with fanatics. This stuff is important. You should be pissed off and fighting mad.God damned this feels good for a change. God damn I am fired up for November 2012. No prisoners. No backing down. Republicans don’t want to negotiate or govern with you, they want you dead. So either reach down and grab a pair and fight back, or take what they give you. Your choice. I’ve made mine. And as we have seen this week, if you fight, and you don’t put up with the bullshit, people will join you and we will win.

via Balloon Juice » One More Thing About Komen

The phrase “Walsh Got Deliciously Screwed In Redistricting” Never Gets Old #p2 #IL08

Kossack David Nir gets to consume e tasty beverage of his choice; his diary on Rep. Joe Walsh’s reported $3.5mil campaign fund windfall got quoted on Huffington Post. That’s not quite as prestigious as being cited in Time or The New York Times, but it’s a pretty good showing.

Especially as HuffPo’s Meghan Neal quoted my favorite political turn of phrase of the current election cycle.

The closest I ever got to seeing my Congressman was when I showed up at a “small business” forum held nearby. Took photos of all the media trucks and went home.

Well done, Kossack! Keep covering what’s likely to be a high-profile race here in the IL-08 Congressional district.

Walsh got deliciously screwed in redistricting…

Meanwhile, sources suggest that Boehner may be wielding his political influence in congressional races outside his home state. Chicago’s Daily Herald has sources saying Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) was convinced to run in the Democratic-leaning 8th District in part by a promise of $3.5 million in general election fundraising help from the speaker. As a Daily Kos writer put it, “Walsh got deliciously screwed in redistricting and wasn’t left with a lot of good options: The 14th is also home to fellow GOPer Randy Hultgren, so that would have meant a major primary battle. But the redrawn 8th isn’t really a district that Republicans have much of a shot in.” Walsh announced his decision Thursday, saying the “idea of ceding this seat to the Democrats just felt wrong.”

via Election 2012: Boehner’s Staff Used Backroom Antics To Shape Congressional Races, Report Shows

Hey SEB! Alasdair Fraser And Natalie Haas Ann Arbor Nov 13

Attention, SEB!!

A really great folk duo is playing in Ann Arbor this weekend at The Ark. If you like Scottish fiddle with a wee bit of percussive cello, don’t miss them. My husband David and I happened to catch a show on a vacation to Maine (they tour incessantly), and it was one of those rare moments of discovery.

Hope you see this notice, if folk music’s your thing.

13 Ann Arbor MI The Ark Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas 734-761-1451 Tickets, Info

“. . . the expressive gamut from deep Celtic melancholy to joyful jig, his fiddle imitations of the bagpipe almost unbelievable, the whole rendered with a humble sincerity, flawless virtuosity and just about the sweetest sound since Fritz Kreisler.” —L.A. TIMES

“Alasdair Fraser is recognized throughout the world as one of the finest fiddle players Scotland has ever produced. [His] name is synonymous with the vibrant cultural renaissance which is transforming the Scottish musical scene.” —SCOTS Magazine

Master Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser is a consummate performer. His dynamic fiddling, engaging stage presence, and deep understanding of Scotland’s music have created a constant and international demand for his solo appearances and concerts with a variety of ensembles. Alasdair has been a major force behind the resurgence of traditional Scottish fiddling in his homeland and the U.S., inspiring legions of listeners and learners through his recordings, annual fiddle camps, and concerts. He has represented Scotland internationally through performances sponsored by the British Council, and has been awarded touring support by the California Arts Council, with the ranking of “highest priority for inclusion on the roster; considered ‘model’ in stature.”

Alasdair’s richly expressive playing transports listeners across a broad musical spectrum, ranging from haunting laments from the Gaelic tradition to classically-styled airs, raucous dance tunes, and improvisations based on traditional themes. His vast repertoire spans several centuries of Scottish music and includes his own compositions, which blend a profound understanding of the Scottish tradition with cutting-edge musical explorations. He weaves through his performances a warm and witty narrative, drawing from a deep well of stories and lore surrounding Scotland’s musical heritage.

via Alasdair Fraser

Kevin Fox Makes Offer To Google They Shouldn’t Refuse

They really should take him up on this.

Also, I have surrendered; I don’t welcome our Google Plus overlords, but I’ll let them in the house on a hot day and listen politely. And I like the clean “if you like this, please share” icons in Kevin’s post, so will implement that here and at Holy Moly.

And so I put my resources where my mouth is. As the former lead designer for Google Reader, I offer my services to Google, rejoining for a three month contract in order to restore and enhance the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements. I will put my current projects on hold to ensure that Google Reader keeps its place as the premier news reader, and raises the bar of what a social newsreader can be.

Link: My offer to Google Reader « fox @ fury

Back In The Blog Saddle Again

It’s been too long, so I’m just going to start blogging things again.

First up: it has to be said, AOL email addresses are not cool, they indicate that the sender is stuck in a rut, and sometimes people make value judgements about you if you’re using one.

If famous people are still using AOL emails, it’s because they can’t be bothered.

AOL addresses are not a status symbol. This is another example of the sycophantic logic that twists powerful people’s flaws into reinforcing how much better they are than normal people. Mark Zuckerberg’s too busy to buy presentable clothes! Steve Jobs can’t give to charity because it will distract him from the crucial work of figuring out how to make a computer .1 inches thinner. Barack Obama shouldn’t quit smoking, because it helps him run the country better.

The only status an AOL address symbolizes is your status as an old person, stuck in the mid-90s. Whether they are checked at the public library or on a media mogul’s purple Blackberry while flying first class, the AOL address is nothing more than a digital AARP card.

via Is an AOL Email Address a ‘Status Symbol?